Interview with Barrow BOC Chairman candidate Jim Beckemeyer
BarrowJournal.com and The Braselton News invited each of the candidates for chairman of the Barrow County Board of Commissioners to participate in an in-depth interview with reporter Kristi Reed and editor Mike Buffington to discuss issues of importance to Barrow County voters. The following is a transcript of the key issues from our interview with candidate Jim Beckemeyer.
NEWS/JOURNAL: You have said you will not support growth for the sake of growth – you will support good growth only. Define good growth and in what way do you believe the county commissioners control the type of growth that comes into Barrow County?
BECKEMEYER: What we have seen in Barrow County over the last decade is a whole bunch of low-end residential homes being built. There have been attempts to change that through providing infrastructure in the county. Basically, my problem is that when you have a starter home, it is just that. It is indicative of having a young family and the national average is 2.5 children. Just say they have two kids, you have to educate those two children in our Barrow County School system and that’s an extremely costly thing. The other county services we have to provide, all total up to way more than what that particular house generates in revenues to the tax base. We’re extremely lop-sided. The tax base is way out of kilter because of that fact. We try and bring good, clean industry into the county and they see that trend. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out and they go up the road a little further to where they are not doing that. When I was a commissioner years ago, we had a sewer system that was paid for out of SPLOST dollars for the intended purpose of industrial growth. Well that has now changed and they are allowing residential taps onto that for various reasons. I can’t for the life of me really justify it. Now that they have opened that up, that capacity has essentially all been absorbed by high density residential - apartment complexes, town homes type rezones. A lot of that has not been built out yet, but it has been rezoned with that intent. As a commissioner, how do we guide the growth? We can do it by making careful choices about how we do our infrastructure. Quite frankly, we need to place designation on that infrastructure as to what its intended purpose is rather than opening a flood gate for high density residential that is going to flood our school system and further cause imbalance in the tax base and not provide those jobs and economic development opportunities that were the original intended purpose of doing it. When we do rezone things, we do need to look at them from the aspect of protecting the health, safety and welfare of the community. Over the past few years, there have been so many court challenges to zoning it is almost like the commission is afraid to say no to something. You don’t necessarily have to say no to a rezone, but you can take that rezone request and potentially modify it. If someone wants to go to a commercial zone, you can adjust that. The problem is they have completely denied the property owner the rezone. That gets challenged in court and it falls down.
NEWS/JOURNAL: Some would say that to build a utility system for both sewer and water, you have to have tap-on fees. Secondly, most industries that are looking in this area of the state are not large consumers of water. So, in order to pay for the system, you have to have residential and commercial. Is that the case?
BECKEMEYER: I may not have made it clear. When you do that, a portion of that should be set aside specifically for that intended purpose. The system should not solely be dedicated to it. In the first land application system we did, because of the way the SPLOST referendum was written, I think that’s the way it should have existed. When you change that later on, I actually question the legality of doing that. I understand that they cited some degradation of the system because of the lack of flow in it, but I think there were some other alternatives other than tapping onto it with apartment complexes. If we’re going to build the system, let’s not leave it open ended. Let’s say, we want a certain percentage of this to be used for each individual purpose.
NEWS/JOURNAL: Taxes are a big issue, especially with the economic downturn. You have said you don’t believe there is a lot of money to cut out of the administrative budget, but that there is project spending and debt service that may be the problem. Where would you propose to make cuts given the slowed revenues to county government and where do you think the budget is inflated?
BECKEMEYER: That’s a huge question. As far as administratively, I think we’re doing a lot of things right there. We’ve got a great purchasing department. There’s not a whole lot of fat in the day-to-day operations of the government. I don’t intend to micromanage from the chairman’s office, but I would insist that the department heads do. I do see some level of problems that occur before it gets to purchasing – the decisions of what we’re spending the money on that is coming from the department head level. Some of that needs to be examined a little bit better. Once it gets to the drum head of the purchasing department, they’re doing a great job of going out and finding the best prices for us. Salary structure – I think we’re pretty good. The benefits package is pretty good. Again, there is not a lot of revenue coming in there. The other thing I do also see in the departmental level of the county is that there is some tendency for the department heads to say “Oh, it’s the year end. If we don’t spend the money allocated in the budget this year, we probably won’t get it next year.” So, there is kind of a year-end spending spree in some areas of the county, not all are guilty of that. But, I think that a zero based budgeting system in the county would help rectify that problem. It makes sense to do it that way to eliminate that year-end spending spree.
NEWS/JOURNAL: Can you give an example of a year-end spending spree you are referring to?
BECKEMEYER: Not really off the top of my head, but I know that it has occurred in several departments.
NEWS/JOURNAL: Is this something you have seen in the budget, something you have been told or something you experienced?
BECKEMEYER: Kind of all three. I saw that happening as a county commissioner. I can’t give you any great specifics in there. Again, it is not a huge problem and it’s not county wide. It’s just in certain areas. Most of the county departments are run well.
NEWS/JOURNAL: Which ones do you feel are not run well?
BECKEMEYER: I would personally rather, if I am elected, get in there and examine each one of the departments for that activity.
NEWS/JOURNAL: What about debt service? You mentioned that the county has some issues there. Give me your thoughts on the debt service situation.
BECKEMEYER: It’s hard to tack down the exact figure of what our levels of bonds are. If you add in the airport bonds and some from Bear Creek, you get different figures. It’s somewhere in the range from $120-$128 million in bond debt. We have borrowed money to pay interest on that. Getting back to the earlier question, some of the outside projects we have undertaken are what I see to be big spending problems.
NEWS/JOURNAL: Which outside projects?
BECKEMEYER: Very specifically, I don’t think we should have undertaken this auditorium issue. If it was done, it probably should have been done with private industry. I know for a fact a gentleman that is looking to develop an area on 316 and he’s a little upset about that because it interferes with one of the things he was intending to do which was to build a conference center in association with the development that he is doing.
NEWS/JOURNAL: Is your issue with that is that it is being done at all or the amount it has grown to? The citizens approved doing that project with a SPLOST amount.
BECKEMEYER: It’s not necessarily the project itself. I think there is a need for arts and entertainment in this county. I don’t think with the $4.7 million that was written into that SPLOST…there is any way that we can build an auditorium that will facilitate a national act coming to Barrow County or huge conventions or things of that nature. I think what we need to do is take that money and scale this thing back down to something that would be…first of all, it needs to be located in a different spot if this is going to be done in conjunction with the school system. It’s out there on Hwy. 316. It’s not located near any of our schools. If the kids are going to have a school play, are we going to bus them out there to use this facility? I don’t think that makes sense. I also question whether or not it is legal for the school board to enter into this project. There was a Supreme Court ruling that, in my understanding of it, was some degree adverse to them being allowed to use those funds for that type purpose. I really have a problem with the property site selection. I really think we can go back and take those funds there, build a facility of some sort that will give the Chamber of Commerce a location and help promote private groups to do this sort of thing here in the county. If you look around the area, the Classic Center…that facility broke even this year for the first time. The Mountain Center in Gainesville does not pay for itself. The huge facility in Gwinnett County is large enough to attract the national acts, sports event and things of that nature so I don’t really even try and include that in a comparison. It’s in a whole different category. If the clock turned back and I had anything to do with it, I don’t think we would have entered into this project.
NEWS/JOURNAL: You have called it a “white elephant” that is a waste of taxpayers’ money and you said it was designed to “line the pockets of a few people with millions of dollars from our pockets.” Who are you referring to?
BECKEMEYER: Again, that bears on the property site selection. I think the purpose there, without saying anything liable that’s going to get me personally sued, I think that it was done to help sell commercial real estate in that area. I have no problem with running infrastructure out there to help bolster commercial growth in that area.
NEWS/JOURNAL: You said you want to create a position for a grant writer. The Board of Commissioners frequently announces a grant they have been awarded or a purchase they are about to make with grant money. What grants do you think they have missed?
BECKEMEYER: I’ll name two right off the bat. We have missed out on state green space dollars. We have not pursued those. The governor’s office has offered up this money. These are grants. These are not matching funds. These are not loans. It’s pure grant money. We have not done that. We could utilize that money for a number of purposes, be it recreational areas for passive recreation. We could use those monies to build a wetlands bank to help save the money down the road when we are doing projects that will impact wetlands and streams. We will have that capacity available for mitigation. We are going to have to build a reservoir at some point in time or some large water project. If we have the wetlands bank already in place, we can use those credits for the mitigation of those sites. The other one, again with water, the legislature this past year has offered up a whole lot of money. Well, not a whole lot of money, but it’s more than we’ve got and we have not pursued it in regards to water sources. We don’t have a plan on the books, which we should have.
NEWS/JOURNAL: You’re running against an incumbent. What is the best thing your opponent has done while in office?
BECKEMEYER: I think the best thing that he has done is that he has surrounded himself with a pretty good staff of people that are operating the administrative portion of our government. I think he deserves credit for that.
NEWS/JOURNAL: What is the worst thing your opponent has done while in office?
BECKEMEYER: The worst thing that he has done is fail to follow the charter of the county. He has allowed himself and his administration to be clouded by continued questions regarding his real estate license. Because he did not put his license on inactive status, any decision this administration makes regarding infrastructure that involves property purchases, things of that nature, it puts a shadow – a question – on those activities. It allows people to call it into question. I think it was very irresponsible thing for him to do.
NEWS/JOURNAL: How do you view the role of government in local development? Should government be a partner in trying to provide roads, sewer, water, etc. or should government take more of an adversarial role to projects looking to come into the county?
BECKEMEYER: I don’t see it as an either/or – it’s somewhere in the middle. The sole purpose of government is to protect the health, safety and welfare of the community. In doing that, we have to look at those people and those companies and those developers that are wanting to come into the county to do projects. My personal opinion is that if you are wanting to come in here and do something that does not adversely impact the health, safety and welfare of this community and does not adversely impact the tax base or the environment of this county, that you should have the full support of the government. And I think that within reason, within budget, that if there are infrastructure needs that those people have to bring a facility or an economic engine to the county, then we should, by all means, try and do that. But, if you are wanting to come here and make a quick buck without regard to the people of the county – that you are going to build something that is going to be extremely burdensome to the people of this county, then I think it is the duty of the government to stand in, to some degree, opposition to that within the limits of the law.
NEWS/JOURNAL: What is Barrow County’s biggest problem?
BECKEMEYER: The biggest issue we face for the future of this county is water. When I was in forestry school, we took a few wildlife classes and we studied habitats and the factors that go into building a habitat. Well, Barrow County is our habitat and habitats have limiting factors on what the key elements or resources are for that habitat. I see our biggest issue right now being water. That is our greatest limiting factor and we need to conserve the resources we have. We need to protect the wetlands, we need to protect the streams from poor development practices. Right now, we’re doing a terrible job of that. I can take you in any subdivision under development and not even get out of the truck and show you violation after violation after violation of state law. We are the issuing authority as given by the state to enforce those laws and regulations. We’re doing a poor job of it and I will change that. We need to work with the municipalities and the local governments and secure a watershed that is suitable for a new reservoir for this area. I don’t know if Barrow County can do it by themselves. It is something we’re going to have to examine as a region. We have an inventory of literally thousands of lots that have been approved by this current administration. Our water problem goes way beyond a storage issue. It is a source issue. A resource issue and a storage issue. We have got to protect those resources. We have to secure a watershed area and at least pass ordinances that will protect that so it can be used in the future when we do have the money. Quite frankly, I would like to move even farther than just that. I’d like to start that 13, 14 year process of building a new reservoir in this county. I wanted to do that five years ago when I was on the water and sewer authority and we were told at the time that we had enough water for 25 years. I daresay that was incorrect. I was the lone vote on the board at that time in favor of moving forward on a reservoir. The other thing that we need to be doing is to lead by example. Our county facilities need to have conservation practices in place in every one of them. I want to see water collection tanks at each fire station with a pump on them so that rainwater can be used for wash down of hoses and fire trucks. I want to see any landscape projects that we do utilize xeriscaping. I want to see low flow toilets in all the buildings. There is so much water that is being used by our county government that we need…before we ask the people of this community to watch their lawns wither and die, we need to be doing it ourselves. We need to be leading by example.
NEWS/JOURNAL: You have said you will not support growth for the sake of growth – you will support good growth only. Define good growth and in what way do you believe the county commissioners control the type of growth that comes into Barrow County?
BECKEMEYER: What we have seen in Barrow County over the last decade is a whole bunch of low-end residential homes being built. There have been attempts to change that through providing infrastructure in the county. Basically, my problem is that when you have a starter home, it is just that. It is indicative of having a young family and the national average is 2.5 children. Just say they have two kids, you have to educate those two children in our Barrow County School system and that’s an extremely costly thing. The other county services we have to provide, all total up to way more than what that particular house generates in revenues to the tax base. We’re extremely lop-sided. The tax base is way out of kilter because of that fact. We try and bring good, clean industry into the county and they see that trend. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out and they go up the road a little further to where they are not doing that. When I was a commissioner years ago, we had a sewer system that was paid for out of SPLOST dollars for the intended purpose of industrial growth. Well that has now changed and they are allowing residential taps onto that for various reasons. I can’t for the life of me really justify it. Now that they have opened that up, that capacity has essentially all been absorbed by high density residential - apartment complexes, town homes type rezones. A lot of that has not been built out yet, but it has been rezoned with that intent. As a commissioner, how do we guide the growth? We can do it by making careful choices about how we do our infrastructure. Quite frankly, we need to place designation on that infrastructure as to what its intended purpose is rather than opening a flood gate for high density residential that is going to flood our school system and further cause imbalance in the tax base and not provide those jobs and economic development opportunities that were the original intended purpose of doing it. When we do rezone things, we do need to look at them from the aspect of protecting the health, safety and welfare of the community. Over the past few years, there have been so many court challenges to zoning it is almost like the commission is afraid to say no to something. You don’t necessarily have to say no to a rezone, but you can take that rezone request and potentially modify it. If someone wants to go to a commercial zone, you can adjust that. The problem is they have completely denied the property owner the rezone. That gets challenged in court and it falls down.
NEWS/JOURNAL: Some would say that to build a utility system for both sewer and water, you have to have tap-on fees. Secondly, most industries that are looking in this area of the state are not large consumers of water. So, in order to pay for the system, you have to have residential and commercial. Is that the case?
BECKEMEYER: I may not have made it clear. When you do that, a portion of that should be set aside specifically for that intended purpose. The system should not solely be dedicated to it. In the first land application system we did, because of the way the SPLOST referendum was written, I think that’s the way it should have existed. When you change that later on, I actually question the legality of doing that. I understand that they cited some degradation of the system because of the lack of flow in it, but I think there were some other alternatives other than tapping onto it with apartment complexes. If we’re going to build the system, let’s not leave it open ended. Let’s say, we want a certain percentage of this to be used for each individual purpose.
NEWS/JOURNAL: Taxes are a big issue, especially with the economic downturn. You have said you don’t believe there is a lot of money to cut out of the administrative budget, but that there is project spending and debt service that may be the problem. Where would you propose to make cuts given the slowed revenues to county government and where do you think the budget is inflated?
BECKEMEYER: That’s a huge question. As far as administratively, I think we’re doing a lot of things right there. We’ve got a great purchasing department. There’s not a whole lot of fat in the day-to-day operations of the government. I don’t intend to micromanage from the chairman’s office, but I would insist that the department heads do. I do see some level of problems that occur before it gets to purchasing – the decisions of what we’re spending the money on that is coming from the department head level. Some of that needs to be examined a little bit better. Once it gets to the drum head of the purchasing department, they’re doing a great job of going out and finding the best prices for us. Salary structure – I think we’re pretty good. The benefits package is pretty good. Again, there is not a lot of revenue coming in there. The other thing I do also see in the departmental level of the county is that there is some tendency for the department heads to say “Oh, it’s the year end. If we don’t spend the money allocated in the budget this year, we probably won’t get it next year.” So, there is kind of a year-end spending spree in some areas of the county, not all are guilty of that. But, I think that a zero based budgeting system in the county would help rectify that problem. It makes sense to do it that way to eliminate that year-end spending spree.
NEWS/JOURNAL: Can you give an example of a year-end spending spree you are referring to?
BECKEMEYER: Not really off the top of my head, but I know that it has occurred in several departments.
NEWS/JOURNAL: Is this something you have seen in the budget, something you have been told or something you experienced?
BECKEMEYER: Kind of all three. I saw that happening as a county commissioner. I can’t give you any great specifics in there. Again, it is not a huge problem and it’s not county wide. It’s just in certain areas. Most of the county departments are run well.
NEWS/JOURNAL: Which ones do you feel are not run well?
BECKEMEYER: I would personally rather, if I am elected, get in there and examine each one of the departments for that activity.
NEWS/JOURNAL: What about debt service? You mentioned that the county has some issues there. Give me your thoughts on the debt service situation.
BECKEMEYER: It’s hard to tack down the exact figure of what our levels of bonds are. If you add in the airport bonds and some from Bear Creek, you get different figures. It’s somewhere in the range from $120-$128 million in bond debt. We have borrowed money to pay interest on that. Getting back to the earlier question, some of the outside projects we have undertaken are what I see to be big spending problems.
NEWS/JOURNAL: Which outside projects?
BECKEMEYER: Very specifically, I don’t think we should have undertaken this auditorium issue. If it was done, it probably should have been done with private industry. I know for a fact a gentleman that is looking to develop an area on 316 and he’s a little upset about that because it interferes with one of the things he was intending to do which was to build a conference center in association with the development that he is doing.
NEWS/JOURNAL: Is your issue with that is that it is being done at all or the amount it has grown to? The citizens approved doing that project with a SPLOST amount.
BECKEMEYER: It’s not necessarily the project itself. I think there is a need for arts and entertainment in this county. I don’t think with the $4.7 million that was written into that SPLOST…there is any way that we can build an auditorium that will facilitate a national act coming to Barrow County or huge conventions or things of that nature. I think what we need to do is take that money and scale this thing back down to something that would be…first of all, it needs to be located in a different spot if this is going to be done in conjunction with the school system. It’s out there on Hwy. 316. It’s not located near any of our schools. If the kids are going to have a school play, are we going to bus them out there to use this facility? I don’t think that makes sense. I also question whether or not it is legal for the school board to enter into this project. There was a Supreme Court ruling that, in my understanding of it, was some degree adverse to them being allowed to use those funds for that type purpose. I really have a problem with the property site selection. I really think we can go back and take those funds there, build a facility of some sort that will give the Chamber of Commerce a location and help promote private groups to do this sort of thing here in the county. If you look around the area, the Classic Center…that facility broke even this year for the first time. The Mountain Center in Gainesville does not pay for itself. The huge facility in Gwinnett County is large enough to attract the national acts, sports event and things of that nature so I don’t really even try and include that in a comparison. It’s in a whole different category. If the clock turned back and I had anything to do with it, I don’t think we would have entered into this project.
NEWS/JOURNAL: You have called it a “white elephant” that is a waste of taxpayers’ money and you said it was designed to “line the pockets of a few people with millions of dollars from our pockets.” Who are you referring to?
BECKEMEYER: Again, that bears on the property site selection. I think the purpose there, without saying anything liable that’s going to get me personally sued, I think that it was done to help sell commercial real estate in that area. I have no problem with running infrastructure out there to help bolster commercial growth in that area.
NEWS/JOURNAL: You said you want to create a position for a grant writer. The Board of Commissioners frequently announces a grant they have been awarded or a purchase they are about to make with grant money. What grants do you think they have missed?
BECKEMEYER: I’ll name two right off the bat. We have missed out on state green space dollars. We have not pursued those. The governor’s office has offered up this money. These are grants. These are not matching funds. These are not loans. It’s pure grant money. We have not done that. We could utilize that money for a number of purposes, be it recreational areas for passive recreation. We could use those monies to build a wetlands bank to help save the money down the road when we are doing projects that will impact wetlands and streams. We will have that capacity available for mitigation. We are going to have to build a reservoir at some point in time or some large water project. If we have the wetlands bank already in place, we can use those credits for the mitigation of those sites. The other one, again with water, the legislature this past year has offered up a whole lot of money. Well, not a whole lot of money, but it’s more than we’ve got and we have not pursued it in regards to water sources. We don’t have a plan on the books, which we should have.
NEWS/JOURNAL: You’re running against an incumbent. What is the best thing your opponent has done while in office?
BECKEMEYER: I think the best thing that he has done is that he has surrounded himself with a pretty good staff of people that are operating the administrative portion of our government. I think he deserves credit for that.
NEWS/JOURNAL: What is the worst thing your opponent has done while in office?
BECKEMEYER: The worst thing that he has done is fail to follow the charter of the county. He has allowed himself and his administration to be clouded by continued questions regarding his real estate license. Because he did not put his license on inactive status, any decision this administration makes regarding infrastructure that involves property purchases, things of that nature, it puts a shadow – a question – on those activities. It allows people to call it into question. I think it was very irresponsible thing for him to do.
NEWS/JOURNAL: How do you view the role of government in local development? Should government be a partner in trying to provide roads, sewer, water, etc. or should government take more of an adversarial role to projects looking to come into the county?
BECKEMEYER: I don’t see it as an either/or – it’s somewhere in the middle. The sole purpose of government is to protect the health, safety and welfare of the community. In doing that, we have to look at those people and those companies and those developers that are wanting to come into the county to do projects. My personal opinion is that if you are wanting to come in here and do something that does not adversely impact the health, safety and welfare of this community and does not adversely impact the tax base or the environment of this county, that you should have the full support of the government. And I think that within reason, within budget, that if there are infrastructure needs that those people have to bring a facility or an economic engine to the county, then we should, by all means, try and do that. But, if you are wanting to come here and make a quick buck without regard to the people of the county – that you are going to build something that is going to be extremely burdensome to the people of this county, then I think it is the duty of the government to stand in, to some degree, opposition to that within the limits of the law.
NEWS/JOURNAL: What is Barrow County’s biggest problem?
BECKEMEYER: The biggest issue we face for the future of this county is water. When I was in forestry school, we took a few wildlife classes and we studied habitats and the factors that go into building a habitat. Well, Barrow County is our habitat and habitats have limiting factors on what the key elements or resources are for that habitat. I see our biggest issue right now being water. That is our greatest limiting factor and we need to conserve the resources we have. We need to protect the wetlands, we need to protect the streams from poor development practices. Right now, we’re doing a terrible job of that. I can take you in any subdivision under development and not even get out of the truck and show you violation after violation after violation of state law. We are the issuing authority as given by the state to enforce those laws and regulations. We’re doing a poor job of it and I will change that. We need to work with the municipalities and the local governments and secure a watershed that is suitable for a new reservoir for this area. I don’t know if Barrow County can do it by themselves. It is something we’re going to have to examine as a region. We have an inventory of literally thousands of lots that have been approved by this current administration. Our water problem goes way beyond a storage issue. It is a source issue. A resource issue and a storage issue. We have got to protect those resources. We have to secure a watershed area and at least pass ordinances that will protect that so it can be used in the future when we do have the money. Quite frankly, I would like to move even farther than just that. I’d like to start that 13, 14 year process of building a new reservoir in this county. I wanted to do that five years ago when I was on the water and sewer authority and we were told at the time that we had enough water for 25 years. I daresay that was incorrect. I was the lone vote on the board at that time in favor of moving forward on a reservoir. The other thing that we need to be doing is to lead by example. Our county facilities need to have conservation practices in place in every one of them. I want to see water collection tanks at each fire station with a pump on them so that rainwater can be used for wash down of hoses and fire trucks. I want to see any landscape projects that we do utilize xeriscaping. I want to see low flow toilets in all the buildings. There is so much water that is being used by our county government that we need…before we ask the people of this community to watch their lawns wither and die, we need to be doing it ourselves. We need to be leading by example.
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